MUSIC VIDEO: Tessa Thompson Makes Janelle Monáe (and Us) Feel Pretty F*cking Queer Today

Watch Janelle Monáe recreate classic Black Girl Magic vibes of 1980s “Control” era Janet Jackson from the very first beat drop, as she steps into her glory to become this generation’s living embodiment of Prince.

This is pure, unadulterated black bisexual happiness. It’s gonna make you smile. Here, have some joy with your day.

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Carmen Phillips

Carmen Phillips is Autostraddle's former editor in chief. She began at Autostraddle in 2017 as a freelance team writer and worked her way up through the company, eventually becoming the EIC from 2021-2024. A Black Puerto Rican feminist writer with a PhD in American Studies from New York University, Carmen specializes in writing about Blackness, race, queerness, politics, culture, and the many ways we find community and connection with each other.  During her time at Autostraddle, Carmen focused on pop culture, TV and film reviews, criticism, interviews, and news analysis. She claims many past homes, but left the largest parts of her heart in Detroit, Brooklyn, and Buffalo, NY. And there were several years in her early 20s when she earnestly slept with a copy of James Baldwin’s “Fire Next Time” under her pillow. To reach out, you can find Carmen on Twitter, Instagram, or her website.

Carmen has written 716 articles for us.

79 Comments

  6. Listen, I love this song and the video…and I love her and Tessa together…but “Django Jane,” though?!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTjQq5rMlEY

    We gon’ start a muthafuckin’ pussy riot or we gon’ have to put them on a pussy diet

    Highly Melanated. Arch-Android Orchestrated.

    Let the vagina have a monologue

    OH. MY. GOODNESS.

  9. *screams in bi*
    *screams in queer*
    *screams in Janelle & Tessa shipper*
    **just screams (internally because I am watching this at a coffee shop)**

  12. Please play this song for every milestone event of my life. And if possible, project the video on my tombstone.

  21. I couldn’t get my mouth to close while watching this. And then I had to come here because I knew you guys would be on top of things. Holy fuck.

  24. Watching this was the first thing I did this morning! The day can really only go downhill from there, but if I just keep watching it maybe it won’t! <3 <3 <3

    • Oh, same. I was in the middle of getting dressed and I just… stopped. To keep watching.

      Any day that starts with me uttering a weird guttural “Hwuoah” sound is definitely a good day.

  26. Okay, did anybody else get a Prince vibe from this song? A little bit from the video, but definitely from the song.

    • Oh yes! I got that too.

      And then I followed the link in the post to an article that confirms it. Prince mentored her and there’s a riff in this song inspired by Prince’s Kiss.

  27. YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSS!!!

    This whole video is the visual and audio embodiment of the love child that would be produced from an orgy with Prince, Janet Jackson, George Michael, Robert Palmer and Madonna.

  28. Not one but two music videos!!!! It has been soooooo long! I watched Django Jane and was super mightly excited.

    Then I watched Make Me Feel and I screamed and died and cried and am a pile of goo writing now.

  31. I haven’t felt so seen since someone gave me a magnet that said ‘My sexual preference is often.’ ???

    Janelle Monáe, we do not deserve you.

  35. Went from this video, which perked me right up, to a motherlode of Janelle videos on a tight loop. I have found my Lord my Priestess

    • And, I noticed there were lots and lots of ladies in these videos who were very excited indeed to see Janelle. As are we.

  36. Now all we need is Janelle Monae and Hayley Kiyoko to collaborate and twentygayteen will be too queer to handle.

  37. Just got back from a Kelela gig to find this and just cannae handle this much incredbleness! The songs are AMAZING!like so amazing I’m hardly even bothered she’s pretty much just confirmed she’s with Tessa. ????

  39. i can’t believe i waited until 8pm to watch this
    this is the best thing to happen so far this year, yes

  41. Having thought about this video a lot in bed last night :coff: I think what it needs is a fanfic, where Tess, Janelle and “bandana boy” as I have christened him in my head, go off to have a threesome. But the ladies get so into each other, they kinda forget he’s there, so after a while, he gets bored and leaves. Then Tessa (or Janelle) notices he’s not there and asks Janelle (or Tessa) where he went and she shrugs, bored and so they go back to making out again.

    But it’s all OK, because bandana boy has found a leather guy, who will spank him and let BB call him “Daddy”.

    So theyalllivehappilyeveraftertheend!

  42. I already commented but after watching this last night I couldn’t sleep for hours because I was so restless, like, ‘how do I continue going about my life if my life is not EXACTLY like this music video??’

    I’ve been trying to think about what exactly makes it so great and I think the main thing is it just feels so queer – obviously it is explicitly about Janelle’s bisexuality, which is wonderful, but all the other components of the video contribute to its queerness also: it feels like an LGBT space populated with LGBT people, Janelle’s physicality and choreography feels androgynous and plays with gender presentation, the same can be said for all three of the MCs (Janelle, Tessa & the guy) when they are together, their dancing all feels completely instinctive, raw, and unconcerned with coming off as traditionally sexy (though of course the effect *is* sexy as hell), the use of the bisexual flag colours in the lighting, and ultimately the overall feeling that Janelle and Tessa, and to a slightly lesser extent the guy and the other club-goers, are operating completely outside of societal norms of heterosexism, the video as a whole just feels like it’s existing in a space outside of that rather than interacting with it in any way.

    The bizarre thing is I’ve seen a number of men make comments that they think Janelle is performing for the male gaze in this video (with the veneer that they care about feminism but clearly coming from an actual place of sexism and biphobia, consciously or otherwise). It makes me realise that men for the life of them cannot discern the expression of female sexuality and the display of female bodies from performance for men. It’s so clear to me (and it seems to other gay/bi women) that this video *hasn’t* been made with men or straight people in mind, it feels so authentic, and yet these men are just seeing ‘she’s being overtly sexual and is wearing less clothes than normal’ and assuming that that has something to do with them.

    • 100%. Anyone who thinks this clip is just about the male gaze has no frigging idea.

      I have to admit that my eyes bugged right out of head seeing Janelle doing overtly sexay at first, but there is such a sense of her absolutely celebrating and *revelling* in the sexytimes. She’s not an object, but THE subject.

  47. My ability to word is bi-bi-bi gone, but did anybody else see the backup dancers in the room where first meet blonde Id Janelle and think Grace Jones?

    Cause that hat matching with the body suit and gloves.

    • Yes, the clip seems to have a lot of people referencing some of Janelle influences, there is also a “Halloween Jack” David Bowie in the background (yes, I watched this in what can only be described as an unhealthy number of times).

  48. Janelle does a super queer video, and suddenly the black and white is joined with all the colours of the rainbow :D

    (Also, “powerful with a little bit of tender” sounds so amazingly soft butch!)

  50. How?! I’m just…*deep sigh* I’m so happy right now.

    Between this and seeing (really interpreting) the bisexual sky in Black Panther, you can’t tell me anything!

  51. I felt like a 13 year old again watching this. Don’t think I blinked through the whole thing. ? ? ?

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